Pros:

Cons:

Death by Degrees marks the debut of Nina Williams as a video-game leading lady, but many folks will already know her as the cold-hearted, cryo-sleeping, sometimes amnesic assassin of Namco's popular Tekken series. But unlike her prior gigs, Death by Degrees is an action/adventure game, replete with everything which that implies. It's a whole new ballgame for Ms. Williams, and unfortunately she doesn't show quite the flair for helming such a production as she has in the past for causing multiple bone fractures.

The story is typically goofy and unbelievable; Nina is a spy sent to infiltrate a weapon smuggling organization's nautical headquarters. She's got two covert allies -- "sneakers" -- while she plays the role of "sweeper." If all goes well, her skills won't be needed. Of course, things go south in the first five minutes, and soon it's time to start sweeping. You know, killing enemies, collecting items, and watching loading screens. The typical.

Flick and Kick

Perhaps the freshest idea in Death by Degrees is the 360 degree attack system. Pressing the right analog stick causes Nina to lash out in the appropriate direction, and it's a snap to alternate between enemies on different sides of her. True, a similar system was used in last year's SCEA/Jet Li mistake, Rise to Honor, but the combat in Death by Degrees has a much more solid, meaty feel to it.

That's a good thing, because the enemies come hot and heavy throughout. As many as six or seven can show up at once, and unlike many other brawling games, these guys aren't polite enough to let Nina get up and have a breather. They attack almost constantly, meaning you need to be on your toes to parry, dodge, and otherwise answer their assaults. It's refreshingly frantic sometimes.

The main problem with the combat system is that the controls are unwieldy. Basic attacks are simple enough, but the more complicated moves and combos require ever weirder combinations of stick-flicking, button-holding, and worst of all, stick-pushing-in combined with stick-flicking. Try pushing in the right analog stick and hitting a direction rapidly. It's not easy, and hardly intuitive. Yet many of the moves in Death by Degrees require such questionable contortions, to the point where it's actually tricky to understand the meaning of some of the entries on the moves list. I ended up using only a small subset of her moves, despite having spent precious skill points to unlock many supposedly more advanced ones.